Go ahead, watch us
In the terrorism era, we don't mind the surveillance cameras
Go ahead, watch us
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
Roughly 64 hours have passed since the botched Times Square car bomb was discovered, and thus far partisans on the left and right have largely muzzled themselves, resisting the impulse to politicize the incident. For this, we can be thankful. Granted, this admirable restraint may well vanish by hour 65, but so far conservatives haven't reflexively blamed the bomb on Barack Obama, and liberals didn't pounce on the incident to quickly suggest that that the bomber had to be a right-wing nut a la Timothy McVeigh.
Wait, let me amend that: Timothy Soltzfus Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, did suggest, on the Politico website yesterday, that the bomber was probably a right-wing nut. He was skeptical that the eventual suspect would have any foreign ties; in his words, "If, as I believe much more likely, the bomb was placed by a right-wing lunatic, it seems to me that questions need to be raised as to whether the right-wing media bears some responsibility for stoking the delusions of such people through its relentless and often unfounded attacks on the Obama administration and the federal government." (Whoa, prof. How about waiting for some actual evidence?) And, on the right, a few commentators think the car bomb is proof that the Obama team should shelve its idea of prosecuting 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan.
In general, however, we appear to have a rough consensus. The Time Square citizens were vigilant, the cops and the feds have been doing their jobs, the Pakistani-American suspect was caught because the system worked, Obama was reportedly briefed six times yesterday alone...we all seem to be on the same team, for however long this moment lasts.
But on one issue in particular, this rough consensus likely will remain. I'm referring to the surveillance cameras, and the general acceptance of their ubiquity.
There once was a time when many Americans were horrified at the notion that public cameras might track their every move. Civil libertarians, in particular, argued that we didn't give up our right to privacy merely by leaving the house. Eight years ago, when Washington, D.C. was proposing to set up public surveillance cameras, the ACLU warned that the information gleaned from such devices "could be mishandled and used to blackmail, intimidate, or bully people who are exercising their freedom of speech, freedom to peaceful assembly, or just going about their daily lives." More generally, "when citizens are being watched by the authorities - or aware they might be watched at any time - they are more self-conscious and less free-wheeling."
Yet, in the aftermath of the car bomb incident, I have yet to hear anyone decry the presence of the 82 surveillance cameras in midtown Manhattan, all of them positioned from 34 Street to 51st Street between Sixth and Eighth Avenues. Quite the contrary, we've all been hoping that the cameras would yield some evidence. And even though it now appears that the balding white guy seen changing his shirt was probably just a balding white guy changing his short, I have yet to hear anyone contend that the cameras subjected him to unfair scrutiny.
Liberals were often vocal in the past about these public snooping devices; now we have Chuck Schumer, the New York Democratic senator, telling MSNBC that the city should establish a stronger midtown security "ring," with the help of many additional cameras - and this morning the New York Times editorial page seconded the idea.
Clearly, in this age of terrorism, we have come to accept this curb on our privacy rights. I'm not saying this is good or bad, I'm just noting a profound shift in the way we live. We expect to be watched, to the point where we don't even think about it anymore. The old civil libertarian concerns are consigned to a distant era; as one surveillance expert once told me, "Huxley and Orwell are just two old writers that crop up on exams."
Besides, Americans increasingly seem to like the idea that they're being watched. Exhibitionism is in. College students post their drunken party pictures on Facebook, the guy sitting behind you in the coffee shop talks at top volume on his cell about the fight he just had with his wife...you get the idea. As Bill Maher quipped on his HBO show the other night, in his inimitable fashion, "If Americans gave a (darn) about privacy, would they be Twittering about their menstrual cycles?"
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Speaking of Bill Maher, he laid an egg on Sunday morning. Embarrassingly so.
The Sunday chat shows have long been predictable and boring, in part because they keep recycling the same old guests, but lately, gratifyingly, there have been some attempts to freshen up the formula by importing some new blood. Hence the move by ABC News to put Maher, the left-leaning satirist/provocateur, at the same roundtable with traditional Beltway bloviators such as George Will.
With Maher slated for the show two days ago, I was eager to watch, if only because I knew that Will would view the interloper as little more than excrement on his well-polished shoe. Will did not disappoint. The problem, however, was that Maher virtually invited the conservative pundit's scorn by uttering the most ridiculous factual inaccuracy.
During a discussion of the BP debacle, Maher argued that America should reduce its oil dependency; after all, he declared, "Brazil got off oil in the last 30 years, and we certainly could've."
Three minutes later, Will fixed on the new guy sitting to his right: "I'd like to go back to Bill. Can you just explain to me in what sense Brazil 'got off' oil?"
Maher looked like a parochial schoolboy who'd been caught by the nuns while pleasuring himself. He said haltingly, "Oh, I believe they did. I believe in the '70s they had a program to use sugar cane ethanol, and I believe this is what fuels - their - country."
Will harrumphed, "I think they still burn a lot of oil and have a lot of it offshore!"
The conversation moved on, but Maher was clearly shaken. As they went to commercial, he said, "Can we have judges fact-check this on Brazil?...I'm sure I read that, I don't think I dreamed that."
But apparently he did. According to the CIA World Factbook, Brazil in 2008 consumed 2.5 million barrels of oil a day - 50 percent more than it consumed as recently as 2006 - and that was the eighth highest in the world.
Memo to Maher: If you want to speak for the left on the morning when official Washington watches TV, keep in mind that you're not riffing to your audience on HBO.
tom: maybe it was a Freudian slip, but you stated it perfectly - "So 30 years ago the media was predicting cooling". That is correct. Howvwer, the overwhelming majority of scientists did not. In fact, there were more peer-reviewed articles about global warming written in the 70's than cooling - and that's long before it was in vogue. Don't equate media coverage with scientific backing. I can show you tons of articles about silicone breast implants and the damage they cause. I just can't find too many scientific papers stating the same.— still_independent- tom: and before you ask for a source for the last posting about the global cooling BS, here's the American Meteorological Society .... http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1?prevSearch=&searchHistoryKey=— still_independent
- P diddy- you said " Swedesboro: You write that Michael Moore said there is no terrorist threat. I'm calling BS on that. Cite your source."................. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ8rpcgCoi4............... there it is dude.
- Pdiddy- you said " Swedesboro: Geez, talk about spreading outright falsehoods. "The left" thinks Halliburton caused the oil spill, you say. Yeah right. I don't know a single Democrat (and I know a lot of them) who thinks Halliburton caused the oil spill."............... You sir are striking out tonight my friend. But first lets be straight with what I said. " the left thinks Halliburton caused the spill "........ from the Huffington Post my friend......................http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/halliburton-may-be-culpri_n_558481.html
- Pdiddy- Third strike of the night, you said " But there's not a single, monolithic terror organization out to get us."..............WOW IS ALL I CAN SAY! The Kohbar Towers, the Twin Embassy bombings, the USS Cole, the First attack at the World Trade Center, 9-11. How soon we forget. At any rate, Michael Moore's comments highlight the man's buffoonery. Moore's comments are especially ridiculous as we now have a Islamic terrorist who want to explode a car bomb in time square.
- Still Independent- In the link is the 1975 article on global cooling published in Newsweek magazine. They do site scientists and various weather entities as their sources. Just reverse the cooling to warming and it all sounds like the same BS we read in today's publications. ....................http://denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
- Still Independent- you said " Don't equate media coverage with scientific backing."............. Oh ok we won't. Except the 1975 article sites sources from Professors at Columbia, Univ of Wisconson and the NOAA. The article is eerily similar to the alarmism the media creates on climate today with cherry picked resources while ignoring evidence to the contrary.
- "Highly respected researchers David H. Douglass, Professor of Physics, University of Rochester, New York, and John R. Christy, Distinguished Professor, Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama at Huntsville, provide a discussion here and here about how a paper they co-authored with others was delayed from print publication for nearly a year by the Journal while a challenge could be mounted by another group. The challenging paper (the review, acceptance and publication of which was accelerated by Journal staff) was published as a separate paper. The normal route would have a civil exchange of comments and responses to the original paper.Why? Douglass, et al., would have probably been afforded the closing remarks in the exchange. An addendum submitted to the Journal by Douglass was apparently "lost" by editors at the Journal of Climatology system. Transparency? Ethics? What are those???" Published on the Climate Science Coaltion for America website
- swedesboromike : "Except the 1975 article sites sources from Professors at Columbia, Univ of Wisconson and the NOAA". Yes, it does. What it doesn't do is cite any of them predicting any cooling. In fact, nowhere in the article does it cite anyone predicting cooling, other than the generic "scientists". I'll go one at a time. They cite NOAA - that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped 1/2 degree from 48-65. OK, that's an objective fact. NOAA provides these temperatures (presumably before they joined the vast conspiracy). Where's the prediction of global cooling? "... of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72". 'kay. Where's the scientist talking about global cooling? Again, NOWHERE in this article is there a prediction about global cooling by any scientist. In fact, nowhere is there even a mention of global cooling by any scientist in this article. ... Yes, there were some (even many) non-scientific articles written bout it. But where are the peer reviewed scientific articles about it? There were a few. But even during this time period, there were far more scientific papers written about warming than cooling.— still_independent
- swedesboromike : see, you've been too rational lately on the immigration topic. i missed the old swedesboromike: Step 1 - claim something. step 2 - offer up "evidence" that doesn't remotely prove your point. step 3 - try to change the focus of the debate.... you offered up a reprint of a Newsweek article that contains exactly zero predictions by any scientists of global cooling - as proof that scientists predicted global cooling. now you'll bring up an incoherently written blog cut-and-paste (without a link again, btw) that has exactly nothing to do with global cooling predictions. great job. keep it up.— still_independent
- Still Independent- some Scientists in the 70's were predicting global cooling. The revisionism of the " warmers" creating a narrative that it was just the media creating a story ignores the fact that some scientists did in fact predict global cooling. The world could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts. Dr. S. I. Rasool of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Columbia University says that... The Times piece continued: The scientist was S.I. Rasool, a colleague of Mr. Hansen's at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The article goes on to say that Mr. Rasool came to his chilling conclusions by resorting in part to a new computer program developed by Mr. Hansen that studied clouds above Venus. The 1971 article, discovered this week by Washington resident John Lockwood while he was conducting related research at the Library of Congress, says that "in the next 50 years" - or by 2021 - fossil-fuel dust injected by man into the atmosphere "could screen out so much sunlight that the average temperature could drop by six degrees," resulting in a buildup of "new glaciers that could eventually cover huge areas." Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/19/nasa-scientists-predicted-new-ice-age-1971#ixzz0n1J9g9aa
- I think we have found a bigger joke than the oft cited Michael Moore. That would be Bill Maher. When he's not doing his comedy act on TV, he does stand up. What makes him worth the time? I was embarrased for ABC putting Maher and Sharpton in the spotlight with someone like George Will.— JimR
- swedesboromike : strike two ! The "leading atmospheric scientist " they are referring to is James Hansen (hence the bold text). Unfortunately, Hansen had nothing to do with the paper, except that they used a computer modeling program that he had written. And unfortunately, the paper did NOT predict what the future climate would be (sadly, I found it). What they did was try to figure out which would force climate more, aerosols (lowering it), or CO2 (raising it). Hence the title "Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate". They made no actual predictions as to how much of either would be put into the atmosphere. So again, yes the media hyped it. But not scientists. But keep trying, buddy,— still_independent
- swedesboromike: and who wrote this about the "global cooling scare?" - "Indeed, the global cooling trend of the 1950s and 1960s led to a minor global cooling hysteria in the 1970s. All that was more or less normal scientific debate, ... But the scientific community never took the issue to heart, governments ignored it, and with rising global temperatures in the late 1970s the issue more or less died" .... It was by the only, according to you, eminently qualified scientist at M.I.T - Richard Lindzen. So even according to your hero Lindzen scientists, by and large, didn't get behind the cooling scare.— still_independent
- JimR: my biggest problem with Maher is that he is only, at best, mildly amusing. I could look past the sanctimonious attitude, the complete contempt he has for anyone's belief system, the ridiculous moral equivalencies he draws, etc .... if he were actually funny.— still_independent
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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